Education strategy
The teachers are given a key role in strengthening the students' competencies
The faculty wants to strengthen the students' non-core competencies as well as increase their competence awareness.
The long-term goals of the education strategy are:
- to increase retention
- to get our graduates into employment quickly
In both goals, the faculty's teachers play a crucial role when the students are to be helped in the transition from student life to working life, or when they are making considerations about well-being in their studies.
In February, the faculty's Education Committee therefore invited SDU University Pedagogy (SDU-UP) into the committee for a discussion of how the faculty in the future strengthens the students' non-core competencies. The starting point for the talk was the four non-core competencies: interdisciplinarity, communication, creativity and self-management.
Vice Dean Poul Nielsen explains how a strengthening of the non-core professional competencies is included in the other educational strategic work:
- In the Education Committee, we are currently working on four strategic initiatives. The first is the implementation of ‘My reflection bank’, the second is business collaboration in the educations, the third is more communication about the education strategy, and the fourth is a strengthening of the non-core competencies. At the meeting with SDU-UP, I experienced that we were given direction in a complex area, and that, I think, was positive.
In the coming months, the departments' teaching committees will be tasked with discussing what specific behavior within the four non-core competencies they want in their students, before SDU-UP and the Education Committee jointly come up with their proposals for which teaching methods best strengthen the new behaviour.
My reflection bank
"My reflection bank" gives the faculty's students access to an online universe, which helps them reflect on their own learning and the application of learning in practice, including the transfer of competences.
The purpose of the reflection bank is especially to give the students a tool that makes them better able to describe the competences they develop through their studies. In this way, students can find greater meaning and relevance in their studies and, as graduates, become faster at finding the first job.
The reflection bank will be a permanent and consistent educational element, which starts with intake 2022. It will be set up in itslearning, which the students already know.